Powering Max Group’s Growth

When Sahil Vachani joined the Max Group in 2016, his objective was to cre­ate a powerful real estate brand and steer Max Ventures and Industries’ (MaxVIL) other businesses towards growth. His diverse expertise across various sectors including consumer durables and real estate has stood him in good stead so far.

Since assuming his role at MaxVIL, he has successfully completed two key transactions which will have an endur­ing impact on the company’s growth over the next few years. The first is the sale of a 22.5 per cent stake in MaxVIL to a subsid­iary of New York Life Insurance Company in January 2017, and the second is the in­duction of Toppan Printing Co. Japan as a joint venture partner with a 49 per cent stake in MaxVIL’s legacy manufacturing business — Max Speciality Films (MSF).

“It has been my personal ambition and re­sponsibility to lead MaxVIL into the ‘wider world of business’  or into sectors where the Max Group does not currently have a pres­ence but are strategically aligned with the group’s larger interests,” says Vachani, who is CEO and managing director of MaxVIL.

“Over a very short span of time since the company’s inception in 2016, we have taken some significant growth bets, clearly identifying two new distinct business av­enues — real estate and providing intellectual and financial capital to high-potential early-stage businesses — and have since made tangible prog­ress in both these verticals as per concrete business plans.”

Vachani was recently appointed as a director on the boards of Max Financial Services and its subsidiary Max Life Insurance. He joined the boards of these companies as a representative of the owner sponsor group led by Analjit Singh.

In addition, Vachani is currently over­seeing two new business verticals under MaxVIL — Max Estates and Max I.

Under Vachani’s stewarship, MaxEs­tates, in its three years of its existence, has almost completed a life-cycle of projects. It has turned around a distressed project— their flagship upcoming project Max Tow­ers — by obtaining the necessary regula­tory approvals and  successfully completing project finance, design and execution, and is currently in the process of marketing its properties that are up for sale.

Sahil started his career as a banker with Citigroup in London, where he worked on mergers and acquisitions across the Middle East and Africa region.

In 2004, he joined Dixon Technologies, a consumer appliance manufacturing firm as business head and set up new verticals across multiple locations and was involved in the launch of new products, setting up of new manufacturing facilities and estab­lishing relationships with leading brands as customers.

In 2008, he transitioned to a new role as co-founder and managing director of Dixon Appliances, where he led the business from its inception on multiple fronts, including design­ing of products, building the team, setting up the manufacturing facility, operations and building relationships with lead­ing brands in India such as Panasonic, Godrej, LG, among others.

The company emerged as the single-largest third party contract manufacturer of washing machines for the Indian market.

In July 2015, Vachani sold his sharehold­ing in the company to devote complete at­tention to his role in the Max Group.

“The new India is increasingly aspira­tional. At MaxVIL, we have consciously created businesses that cater to this aspi­ration and desire in the minds of the con­sumer through our business verticals Max Estates — premium realeEstate, Max Spe­ciality Films — packaging films, and Max I. — investments,” says Vachani.